Posts for June 6, 2022 (page 5)

An orange nerf gun sends bullets ricocheting 
Off my temples, welting like horsefly bites.
And here in the dirt of my childhood home 
Shards of blue foam are buried like tulip bulbs
That never resurface. My childhood was 13 years
Of playing dead curled behind the row of boxwoods
I was a deer with a broken leg waiting to pass
In the quiet autumn evening as the earth goes cold.
I can only hope nothing hears the hitch of my breathing
Whispering through the vining undergrowth 
As the boys run, coyotes, frantic to tear me apart.
Their words creep hot and wet at the nape of my neck
When the neighborhood sinks fully into darkness.
I would limp home knowing the coyote in the room over
Is already asleep, sweat slick, sick of the chase.

I never thought there’d be a day I’d say
I’ll take my shower tomorrow not today

I, bikini’d daughter, used to jump in the shower
detached showerhead in hand,
water on full force, of course,
Power washed my own aged mother, head to toe, as she sat half-cocked 
one cheek on, one cheek off her rickety shower bench

The walk from then to now a speeded up rolling carpet ticking away the
seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks
as I push a parched envelope full of fears and tears

When am I old?
What is my elder worth in gold?
Who will care if I wash my hair?
Who will notice what I even wear?

When does pretty fly away ~ along with every single hay day?
Who earns the privilege of silver hair?
What is safe and secure not even a care?

Who will stop and visit, bring some chicken soup?
Who will be around, when I’m down and duped?
No one wants to be alone, carry a loan on one’s own home

Feeling my way on a scaredy cat path my tail to balance this aftermath
Bargaining with that ending date, convincing self it’s not too late
Hoping there’s still some strength to hit the bell
Lifting the hammer smacking the mark hard as hell!

We grab a soda, some cotton candy, throw a few dimes on a plate
never too late
to win a Kewpie doll

A Carnie Land tilt-a-whirl twirl
To blur this aging stupored girl
Lean lean eye the tattoed guy
Convince him to tilt the whirl faster

And like a top no one wants the ride to stop
But maybe it’s just a Midway Thrill

a mean lean twirl 
a spinning chill
a tilt-a-whirl swirl
a get your fill
to the other side . . .

Birds tumbersaulting
plump clouds break dancing
dog’s hello licking

Let it take you away
for a moment today
from the troubles at bay

-Sue Neufarth Howard

Take me back through
narrow forest roads ,sloped close
The way that light breaks in, beautiful golden streamers

I am a passenger and I am halfway 
between floating, halfway between falling 
down the mountainside as you drive 
along the ridge but I am so safe
In These woods that are dense with vine and mystery
And awe

I don’t know yet that
My memory will be thick and slow with years of kicking the tires to prove its still good despite the trespasses—theirs—
and the alcohol—mine—gone but not forgotten

I don’t know yet that I’ll be searching but,
Not know how to find the forest pass … still

I will miss believing someone’s steady hands were on the wheel.
That someone knew where we were going.
That someone else believed we were going to make it home.

I rebuilt this house
after the last one burnt down

I poured the foundation 
for a single father and son

I double checked the blueprints
Before opening the door

But I don’t know 
if it can bear anymore weight

父母の　しきりに戀し　雉子の声
chichi haha no　shikiri ni koishi　kiji no koe

for my father, my mother / I’ll never stop longing – ah, a pheasant sings!

friends

we are not ghosts

　　　yet

whisper each other into lilies

two crows announce a thunderstorm
cawing, cawing and flying about
a bit unnerving

sirens signal something not good
so many, as of late
all the sadness, madness

silence though I move
no word, only a voice of assurance from within
I am alright, even though

I sit here observing fireflies
contemplating what it’s like to die.

What it’s like to be spread across
the universe in cascades of stars.

Their lights flicker, bright and dim
patterns older than humanity 

scattered throughout the yard
down into the creek.

I think about our distance,
our separate lives,

how we should share more,
but it never feels like enough.

Tree frogs call out for love
from the shadowed edges of woods

no different than me,
longing for kinship, for more, 

for those connections like blinking
lights, solid and electric,
 
but here we are,
alone in the yard

watching a fire burn.

I’m bad at keeping up
I say I will write a poem everyday. 

I don’t.

I say I will start writing more reviews
and go on a run everyday.

I don’t

I say I’m just bad at time management but really
I’m just bad at keeping up. 

If I catch your words mid-air and cradle them in my mouth,
bounce them from my tongue and send them crashing cheek to cheek,
before capturing them between my teeth to chew the aromatic bitterness in which you marinated each syllable